Volando a casa

WARNING: This review may reveal portions of the movie plot.

If you want to just lose yourself in a story that is sweet and uplifting, then this is the movie for you. I was surprised at how efficiently this movie drew me in, but then again I'm a big softie at heart. I started watching this movie late one night and didn't want to stop -- so I didn't!

The movie concerns a young girl who goes to live with her father after her mother is killed in a car accident. Dad and Mom divorced many years before and live on opposite sides of the world -- Canada and New Zealand -- so she doesn't know Dad very well.

Jeff Bridges plays the father in this film and does it incredibly well. He's an artist who is just a little bit quirky, a big believer in following your dreams, and desperately trying to capture the love for his daughter that he regrets having lost in the divorce years before. Anna Paquin as his 13-year old daughter is wonderful -- how do young kids act so well??? -- as she learns to grieve for her mother, find a new life in a new country, and love and trust a father whom she has barely known most of her life.

The supporting cast shines as well, in most cases. Most notably is Terry Kinney as Daniels brother and the young girls uncle. He's the kind of uncle everyone wants to have around, although when he falls asleep while babysitting and Paquin's character disappears, he doesn't seem very responsible. He becomes a bit of a scene stealer though as the movie progresses. He has one of the best lines in the film when he tries to convince a U.S. border-patrol agent that he needs dozens of gallons of gas to go camping for his portable generator to run his blender and TV. "Nothing like camping in the middle of no where with your VCR, a good movie, and a pina colada."

Dana Delany (of TV's "China Beach" fame) plays Daniels sometimes live-in girlfriend and seems to be the only actor who doesn't really stretch in this part. I don't believe this is Delany's fault, however. This story is primarily about the father-daughter relationship, and Delany's part suffers as a result. Most scenes are supportive and don't really give her a chance to shine.

The story is well written with a combination of genuine emotion, without becoming overly sappy. Yes, the film is sweet, but not sickeningly so. When the credits began to roll at the end of this movie, the first thing I thought of way, "How could this have gotten a PG rating?" I *literally* heard one four-letter word in the entire film, and that is said under the breath so that I wasn't even sure I heard it. There is one reference to sex outside marriage, and a car accident at the beginning of the film. That's it. Parents, you can show this to young children without any real concern. My suggestion: Watch the first 5 minutes of the film and if you decide your children can handle the opening sequence of a car crash, then there probably is nothing else in the film that should be a problem (in my opinion!)

I got sucked into a movie on the satellite dish the other day, 'Fly Away Home.' It's a story about a young motherless girl (Amy) who rescues some wild goose eggs and basically becomes their mother. The story evolves as the goslings grow into young adult birds ready to fly south. Since they never had parents the geese haven't learned to fly. The girl's dad thinks he can get them to fly by following him in his ultra-light. But they will only follow Amy. So dad teaches her to fly. Soon the geese are flying. Next, dad and Amy hatch a plot to fly south and have the geese follow them. We know this actually happened when 2 scientists did something similar.

One of the reasons I was sucked into this wonderful family movie was the photography. It is National Geographic quality. In fact I was so impressed with the cinematography that I had to look up who did it: Caleb Deschanel. The setting, a farm in Southern Ontario, allowed him to become intimate with the geese and the natural setting. Another reason I couldn't stop watching the movie was the stunning performance by Anna Paquin, the 16-year old girl who played Amy. I remembered her from the movie, 'Piano.' She played Flora, the daughter of Holly Hunter. I'm sure they picked Paquin to do that part because of her speaking ability. Holly Hunter played the part of Ada, a woman who couldn't talk. She communicated with sign language through her daughter. Paquin was so good in her part that she won the Oscar, quite a feat for an 11-year old.

The story, 'Fly Away Home' is touching because she's not the kind of Hollywood-trained child actor you find in most movies. A surprising thing happened as I watched Amy and her geese. I could sense a startling serenity from her as the bond had developed between them. I wondered how she could manage that. She was only a 16-year old actress then but she conveyed a mothering instinct that goes back to the ageless beginnings of life on this planet. When the goslings were following her around, much of the photography was from ground level. Later when they were all flying, the photography was right there in the flying formation. You were seeing the birds, in flight, right next to you. The beauty of motion was unbelievable. I thought, 'How could anyone shoot these creatures?' There is beauty in seeing them fly. There is beauty in seeing them in their habitat. But the overwhelming beauty is in their living. They deserved that life. It made me think of this sad planet and the billions of creatures that have died because of the human race. Here was a story that went against the slaughter. When Amy and her birds arrived at their destination in Chesapeake Bay I had misty eyes.

So I'm a soft touch.

I watched this movie when I was really young. It has some powerful magic and beautiful cinematography. Really go and see it if you haven't seen it!

Following Toy Story comes Fly Away Home, another string to the increasingly large bow of children's films that adults can also enjoy. The story follows Amy, a 13-year-old New Zealand girl who is forced to live with her estranged father in Canada following a car crash that kills her mother. Amy becomes increasingly withdrawn and upset until she finds a collection of similarly orphaned goslings that she takes care of, nurturing them until they are ready to migrate to the southern United States.

The film could easily have fallen into the sappy ‘family film' category. However, it never lets itself, choosing to concentrate more on characters than moments. Amy's character, played with breathtaking maturity by Anna Paquin, is better developed and more complex than characters in most films aimed at adults. The supporting cast also flesh out their strong characters to make the whole film much more believable.

The cinematography is beautiful, the dusky-autumnal scenes are captured in an explosion of reds and yellows and oranges that seem to wash over you time and time again, and the final flight sequence is a wonderful closing to an incredibly refreshing film.

This movie has something thats missing in a lot of other movies. It has a soul, and a belief in good.

Its believable, beautiful and smooth. Its cast shows that they´re as good as any renowned "great" actor of the day, and the story is quite light...yet its something strangely moving about it.

A daughter that looses her mother, which leads her to take care of doomed geese. And even though the cute-scale is quite high, the movie still holds you cause of its fine acting and soulful goodness.

This is a great movie for all ages. Its nice shooted, really nice telled, and good acted.

Its a given choice for the whole family. 9/10!

Ps. The soundtrack is also very nice. Suttle, clean and memorable.